Loose leaf tea

[Paul]

Where's SiD when you need him? He was always extolling the virtues of a loose Kenyan.

[Russell]

Sainsbury's Red Label loose tea works for us every time in a teapot with a wire mesh tea strainer.  The only hassle is emptying the leaves out of the pot but that is because they are saved for the compost bin and that it is nigh impossible to buy an ordinary tea pot with a large unobstructed hole for the spout.  Most have a restriction of some sort (perferations maybe) to prevent a teabag from getting into the narrowing spout.

As an aside, years ago when the children were small a friend of our daughter who was round for tea asked whether the tea strainer was for catching the drips!

[Ham]

How much of that is "tricks" and how much is it just that bags have tiny dust-like specks of "tea" which have a bigger surface area and therefore brew faster?

I really don't know.
Anyone with any actual knowledge care to comment?

Very few teas have additives (none to my knowledge). The technical name for the grade of tea used for tea bags is "dust" leading to the idea it is floor sweepings, poor quality and bad rep. As it is just the degree to which the leaf is ground, there is no reason why you can't get a reasonable cup of English tea out of a bag which will "brew" very quickly. There is another subject altogether about the coarseness of the UK taste for Black tea not to speak of the milk, and the amusing pride we take in the resulting beverage, but that's another subject. (Actually it's not but I've run out of time)

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Where's SiD when you need him? He was always extolling the virtues of a loose Kenyan.

Usually to be found on the truck route between Nairobi and Mombasa.

Real builder's tea is of course brewed in a tin can with a wire handle over a brazier in a shelter while watching the rain hammer down into the mud outside and hoping the bloody foreman will be held up at the site hut for another half-hour so that you can get a chance to drink the stuff.  Sugar and milk added in the can before it's slopped into tin mugs, jam-jars or whatever for drinking. Nectar.

North Sea fishermans' tea is made in a large pot kept on the hob, occasionally adding more water and or tea.  When the tea leaves reach the lid it's time to go home. 

[rafletcher]

Sainsbury's Red Label loose tea works for us every time in a teapot with a wire mesh tea strainer.  The only hassle is emptying the leaves out of the pot but that is because they are saved for the compost bin and that it is nigh impossible to buy an ordinary tea pot with a large unobstructed hole for the spout.  Most have a restriction of some sort (perferations maybe) to prevent a teabag from getting into the narrowing spout.

Teapots had "perforated" openings for the spout decades before teabags were invented.